Accrington Stanley Community Trust, the multi-award-winning official charity of the Football Club, is celebrating its 9th birthday this week.
In just nine years, the charity has raised over £4million and with this has been able to develop and deliver a varied repertoire of projects and programmes, successfully engaging a staggering 17,171 people in the last 12 months across the areas of Hyndburn, the Ribble Valley and Rossendale.
Investing in frontline provision across our four key themes; sport participation, health, social inclusion and education, the charity has enjoyed unprecedented growth in all areas. In June 2019 the charity won the prestigious Hyndburn Business of the Year Award, beating over 750 local businesses which was a fantastic achievement.
2019 also saw the renewal of our Premier League funded ‘Kicks’ and ‘Primary Stars’ projects. We enter into a new three-year agreement and there could be some exciting changes to come.
We have expanded our education department and introduced a new Foundation degree in partnership with the University of South Wales (USW) and EFL Trust. Students aged 19+ can study the 2-3-year higher education course titled ‘Community Football Coaching and Development’. All lectures are delivered in Accrington and the course consists of two residential visits per year to the USW campus in Cardiff.
Accrington Stanley Community Trust now employs 11 full time individuals from the local area, with a further 15 part time staff members. A number of new job opportunities will be announced shortly to coincide with the opening of the new Sports Hub Facility.
Martin Fearon, Chief Executive Officer of the Trust added: “We have had another great year, securing a record amount of external funding for a variety of different projects. Work also started in May 2019 on the new £2m Community Sports Hub Facility.
Our thriving partnerships play a huge part in allowing us to inspire the local community through our charitable work. I would like to thank all of our partner schools, businesses, funders and groups who engage with us every year.
We are all set for another successful and exciting year, with the full opening of the multi-million-pound Community Sports Hub Facility in January 2020. This will be a big focus for the Charity over the next 12 months along with increasing provision in a number of different areas.
To find out more about the charity’s work, please view our Impact Report 2018
